A road safety campaign by pupils at a school in Bow has won backing from the mayor of Tower Hamlets.
Mayor John Biggs is instructing council engineers to come up with a scheme next to east London’s busy A11.
He had a meeting with students and staff at Bow’s Central Foundation for Girls to agree a ‘co-production’ scheme the girls are calling for to improve safety outside the school in Harley Grove and along the Bow Road trunk route.
It follows an invitation he was given at UK Citizens community network’s 20th anniversary rally held at Bethnal Green’s York Hall in March, when two senior girls went on stage and publicly invited him to visit the school as part of their campaign.
“The mayor agreed to help and is looking at safety measures for Harley Grove,” Citizens UK’s Yasmin Aktar told the East London Advertiser this week.
“He is meeting council engineers to study the problem. It’s become manic at ‘home’ time, especially when parents arrive in cars to pick up the girls.
“We’re working with students to raise awareness with parents to get them to leave their cars at home and walk to school, which will make Harley Grove safer. It will take time, but the ball is rolling.”
The students put forward ideas for a permanent scheme that could include a pedestrian crossing, which the mayor is now studying.
The two Year 10 girls who turned up at the rally in March presented the mayor a giant invitation to the school, signed by all their classmates.
Sarah Allouache explained after the rally: “We’ve done a survey and asked all the students what improvements they want. Many said they would like a zebra crossing.”
Sarah’s classmate Maliha Begum said: “It’s really dangerous outside the school—anyone can just get hit.
“I was hit myself by a cyclist. It’s not safe for us. We just want to keep everyone in our school safe.”
The girls handed the invitation on stage to the mayor, who kept his promise and looked in at the school last week.
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